Tri-Cities Tech Business Update

New Supercomputer Coming to EMSL this Summer

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a user facility on the campus of PNNL

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), located on the campus of PNNL, is one of the U.S. Department of Energy's national user facilities, which attracts scientists from around the world to apply on a competitive basis for its use. This summer it will become home to one of the world's 20 fastest computers. The computer will replace the Chinook supercomputer, the 21st fastest computer in the world when originally installed at EMSL in late 2008. The new computer is expected to be twenty times faster than Chinook. The supercomputer, which is being built by Atipa Technologies, will have 23,000 Intel processors and 184,000 gigabytes of memory. This is four times as much memory per processor as other supercomputers. A calculation that normally would have taken 20 years on your typical laptop, will be processed in an hour by the new computer. Read more...